Mandalorian Honor
by Nyakai
Summary: Hera and Sabine cross paths with the infamous Boba Fett and narrowly escape. Hera's insistence that they not inform the rest of the crew only serves to crack the foundation of trust Sabine has slowly and deliberately built since Anaxes. When Boba Fett returns with leverage to confront Hera, an unlikely partnership forms in secret... a secret Sabine will try her best to uncover.
1. First Encounters

**First Encounters**

* * *

Pale blue light from the dejarik table illuminated the main cabin of the _Ghost_ in flickers at a time. A holographic image of Commander Sato at quarter size stood there, hands behind his back in his usual formal manner as he conversed with the only way other person in the room, Hera Syndulla, sitting in the booth.

"This is _imperative_ ," he said at the conclusion of his brief. "Dr. Woofrow is a brilliant scientist and he could help our cause immensely if we extract him in time."

"You can count on me," promised Hera.

Sato's image flickered out just as a ship-shaking _crash!_ rang from the belly of the _Ghost_. It was shrill enough to make Hera's lekku cringe, and it took all her willpower to restrain herself from checking in on the culprits. Zeb and Chopper had been tasked to modify the shields that day, and she'd heard more yelling and chaos from them than anything else. An eruption of blame followed, filtering through too many layers of durasteel for Hera to make out any words.

At least they'd settled on a truce for the duration of her meeting.

Sato had stressed how delicate the mission was to extract Woofrow—which told Hera that those of her crew swinging lightsabers were probably not the best choice to accompany her. They were great in a fight, but they tended to draw all the attention she needed to avoid. So it was rather convenient that both lightsaber-wielders of her crew were out at the moment with Rex, in the middle of their daily training.

Or in the middle of their daily argument, one of the two.

Hera knocked on one door in the sleeping quarters. After a crashing sound from beyond, the door flew open and Sabine leaned there, failing at playing it cool.

"Yeah, Hera?" Small as she was, she tried her best to take up as much of the doorway as possible. Her head moved to block Hera's view into the room.

"We've got an extraction mission, you and me. We're taking the _Phantom_."

* * *

Sabine hurried back into her room once Hera left, capping the open paints and dunking her utensils into the bowl of water on the floor. Her current project, a halfway complete Ketsu Onyo—still drying on a hull fragment canvas—she slid between her locker and the wall. If it was just herself and Hera on a mission, she didn't want Chopper or Ezra finding anything if they explored her room. Again.

She grabbed the charges for her blasters and loaded them, securing them with a twirl.

It was always exciting to go on a mission without the boys; there was something more professional about just the two ladies of the crew working together. Despite all the open seats in the back, Sabine stood at the helm, next to Hera's seat, scanning the HoloNet on a datapad.

"You said his name is Woofrow?" Sabine was now navigating the seventh page in the bounty boards, and when she found him, she nearly choked. "Sixty thousand credits?!"

"The Empire's serious."

He held no official affiliations to the rebellion; his wanted page said he was merely a known sympathizer. A very expensive sympathizer. In her short stint as a bounty hunter, Sabine had never seen prices even close to five digits.

Sabine glanced from the notice to Hera. "Y'know, we could turn him in ourselves and never have to worry about credits again…"

"Sabine!"

She ducked back behind the datapad, a grin wide underneath her helmet. Of course she was kidding, but there was still that tug of temptation at such a large number. There was still that reactive imagination—thinking about what all she could buy with sixty thousand credits. But her experiences following her bounty hunter days were enough to temper the lure of easy money, and she returned to the matter at hand.

"So either overconfident hunters are coming, or very talented hunters are coming. Great," muttered Sabine.

"That's why I have you along," Hera said with a casual shrug. "Who better to help me than a Mandalorian and a former hunter?"

Sabine puffed up. "Nobody, obviously."

* * *

Dactil, a planet boasting an impressive collection of rings, was fourth from the sun in the Garel system, smaller than the planet Garel, but more populous. It wasn't hard for a Twi'lek pilot and a pink Mandalorian to blend in here among diverse, colorful crowds. Just as many Rodians wandered the streets as Humans, along with Devaronians, Ithorians, Talz, and ruddy Zeltrons.

The buildings elbowed into one another, almost looming over the street where nothing stood shorter than two stories. Decorative spires grew from most buildings, none identical to any other. Archways, mostly ornate and freestanding, but also coupled with the copious amount of bridges Dactil liked to use to connect buildings, spanned the busy streets, adding an air of grandiose to the city. There were a handful of speeders in use—a handful more than Hera saw used in Garel or even Lothal. To those who never knew what elegance looked like, they would assume this was it.

Ten minutes away from the spaceport, Hera and Sabine entered a quiet neighborhood of apartment complexes, uniformly three stories along either side of a dead-end road. The Dactillian architecture saturating downtown was absent here, leaving everything looking meager by comparison. The few locals in this area hurried about their business. They passed right by the women without even acknowledging they existed.

Sabine looked from her datapad to each dusty door identical to its neighbors. "Sato's directions say… over there. Second level," she said, pointing.

Hera followed her to the building in question, up the steps hugging the side of the building and onto an open walkway, past door after door until Sabine stopped, indicating door number 2-49. Hera knocked.

"Go away!" a voice yelled from inside. "Your business is unwelcome!"

"Doctor, please," Hera called, "we're here to help you! We want to escort you to the rebellion!"

A tingle crept down the insides of Hera's lekku then. She looked behind them, over the railing and out into the street. Nobody below cast them even a cursory glance, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

A Chadra-Fan opened the door, recalling Hera's focus. Standing barely a meter tall and covered in brown fur, his pointed ears seemed to inspect the women just as much as his beady little eyes, which scrutinized them over his short snout.

"The rebellion, you say? The rebellion is why I'm afraid to leave my home!"

"We're here to keep you safe, Dr. Woofrow," Hera said. "Commander Sato sent us."

One of the doctor's ears twitched, and he glanced so suddenly at something on the street that both Hera and Sabine turned, Sabine's hands on her holstered blasters. But it was nothing. The neighborhood was deserted now.

"Right," said the doctor in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "I'll get my things."

By "things," he meant three trunks of possessions nearly as tall as himself. He happily led the one with wheels attached, leaving Hera and Sabine to tote the others. Much too big to carry in their arms, the women clung to the single handles on the top of the trunks, holding each with both hands because they were too heavy to lift with just one.

"He's supposed to be running for his life," muttered Sabine, "and he takes this opportunity to make us move half his house?"

"He's also a scientist," Hera reminded her. "He needs equipment and supplies for… science-things." The women continued huffing and puffing, struggling with the luggage while Dr. Woofrow followed, his rolling trunk not giving him the slightest problem.

"People have anti-grav nowadays!" Sabine threw over her shoulder.

Hera shot a silencing glare her way.

Back on the main road, their progression was slow, mulling through the heavy foot traffic, making way for themselves and their cumbersome trunks, but the women picked up speed one pace inside their own hangar—the _Phantom_ had never been such a welcome sight.

Hera's arms were burning now—she'd love nothing more than to drop the trunk halfway across the floor and come back for it later, like the next time she was on Dactil—and she could only imagine Sabine was similarly struggling. But instead of panting, Hera could've sworn she heard muttering escape from her helmet.

Meters away from the _Phantom_ , a small canister rolled from somewhere behind them, venting thick, purple smoke all the way into the middle of their little group.

Hera and Sabine dropped the luggage and armed themselves, spinning in a circle, aiming at the open roof, the walls, anything.

"Where'd it come from?!" cried Hera, coughing into her sleeve. If this was how the Empire operated on Dactil, then they were adopting new procedures.

Hera staggered closer to the _Phantom_ and lowered the boarding ramp just as a net shot over a stack of crates to her left, straight through the swirling smoke, to snag both Woofrow and his rolling luggage in one go. Sabine opened a steady stream of fire on the crates—cover fire. Hera brandished a knife, but before she ran to aid the doctor, a missile shot over the crates. Sabine dove, tackling Hera to the ground behind the safety of the _Phantom_ ; the ship rattled from the impact and scooted a meter, but otherwise stood unscathed.

Hera choked on the duracrete. The smoke was almost as thick as her panic at not being able to breathe; Hera only got as far as taking a knee before passing out, but Sabine popped right up, safe inside her helmet.

She ran through the smoke, blasters in both her hands, only to stop short when she saw their attacker out in the open, already reeling in the netted and limp Chadra-Fan. His green Mandalorian armor was unmistakable.

"Boba F—"

A secondary explosion came from the _Phantom_ behind Sabine, knocking her to the ground. She didn't get up.

* * *

The canister sat empty and the cloud of purple smoke inched its way toward the main hangar door as Boba Fett withdrew a scanner from his belt, holding it close to Woofrow's face. A sheet of light crossed the doctor's features over the netting, and his biometrics popped up on the screen, flashing green in confirmation.

Taking his time, Fett approached Sabine, yanked off her helmet, and scanned her, too. She was listed as wanted by the government of Lothal—an entirely different system. They offered two hundred and fifty credits for her return.

He circled the ship to Hera and nudged her onto her back with his boot. The scanner reported that Lothal offered four hundred credits for her.

Shaking his head, Fett stowed his tech, reclaimed his prize, and dragged the scientist out of the hangar.

* * *

Hera stirred first. She coughed; it felt like every gasp of air wasn't enough for her to breathe. She wobbled to her feet, and if it wasn't for the _Phantom_ being within reach, she would've fallen over.

She stood dazed for the longest moment before the memories of the purple fog rushed back. The canister was still on the ground, but the only trace gas was ever there was the faintest acrid smell clinging to her clothes. Easing her way around the _Phantom_ , she saw Sabine lying on the ground, her helmet a meter away.

"Oh, no," Hera murmured, chest tight. She dropped to her knees next to her and shook Sabine's shoulders harder than she'd ever shaken someone in her life.

It was always lurking in the back of Hera's mind, the supposition that she would one day give her life for the rebellion. She'd lived with that thought for so long it was just part of her identity now. But if she ever led any of her crew into a situation where she walked away from it and they didn't, that guilt would haunt Hera until the rebellion really did take her.

Sabine suddenly stirring at least let Hera breathe easy.

Sabine displayed the same gazed, glassy-eyed stare as Hera helped her to her feet. "How long were we out?" She accepted her helmet from Hera but continued to hold onto the pilot for support.

"Too long! Did you see who attacked us?"

Sabine's eyes finally focused, and her stare grew stony. "Boba Fett."

Hera's stomach dropped faster than a nosedive in the _Ghost_. All assumptions they would catch up to their culprit dissolved and a hand fell over her eyes. She'd heard of the infamous bounty hunter before, but his escapades always happened far enough away to sound fanciful and almost mythical. Like he was too good to exist. And now he'd captured the doctor right out from under them.

"The turn-in point's Coruscant, so the first thing Fett will do is leave the planet," Sabine said.

Scrounging together her remaining shreds of optimism, Hera ordered, "Get into the _Phantom_! We have to get the doctor back!" Leaving Woofrow's luggage on the floor where it fell, Sabine eased herself up the boarding ramp into the ship while Hera collected her scattered weapons.

Hera flipped everything on as she slid into the pilot's seat, and expedited her spaceport request to launch. Hera was familiar with everything about her ship, but there was always something foreign about the _Phantom_. It lacked the uniqueness and upgrades of the _Ghost_ , and for that it was a little underwhelming to pilot. Especially considering who she was about to chase down.

"Sabine! Check all recent departures!" A tall order; this city had three spaceports alone.

By the time Hera's launch was approved, Sabine reported, "Three personal off-world departures were granted in the last half hour, all from the northern 'port."

Hera took off and angled the _Phantom_ into such a steep climb that Sabine grabbed the pilot's chair to not fall to the back of the ship.

Juggling a datapad and her grip, Sabine managed to add, "Okay… head to sector 13, he's reaching the upper atmosphere now. If you punch it, we might really catch up!"

Hera responded immediately, rerouting power from shields to thrusters for an extra boost. Sabine really did slide to the back of the ship.

"How did you narrow it down?!" Hera shouted over her shoulder. Not that she didn't trust Sabine's judgment, but if they followed the wrong ship at all, they'd certainly lose Boba Fett for good.

"Please! I know his ship!"

Something about that made Hera's lekku twitch, but her adrenaline surged at the thrill of the chase, burning the uneasiness out of her system.

* * *

Proximity sensors blared in the cockpit of the _Slave I_ , tracking a ship closing in from behind. It was a tiny auxiliary starfighter, which wouldn't have given Fett pause except that was the exact ship from his hangar scuffle.

Belatedly, he realized one of the combatants was a Twi'lek— a species which revived faster than other humanoids when it came to the purple gas he favored. It'd been years since he'd needed Twi'lek-proof gear.

Dactil's innermost ring loomed on the edge of his sensors, and Fett steered the _Slave I_ straight for it. "Want a chase? Try to follow me in there."

* * *

Dust turned into ice particles turned into rocks of increasingly larger size. By the time Fett reached the outermost ring, Hera was dodging asteroids the size of the _Phantom_. Sabine stood next to the pilot's chair, helpless to do anything but watch Hera chase the hunter she and Ketsu had craved to emulate.

"Why aren't you shooting?" Sabine asked, all her frustration venting in a scoff.

"I can't risk hurting Dr. Woofrow. When I get an opening, I'll try to disable him." Hera folded into a barrel roll. She kept up with Fett, but he was just fast enough to dip around another asteroid every time Hera rounded a curve. "It wouldn't be so difficult in the _Ghost_!"

Sabine's fingers dug into the pilot seat headrest. She stood both paralyzed and antsy, her chest tight and a fresh shiver sweeping down her spine every time the _Slave I_ reappeared in their line of sight. She'd never doubted Hera's abilities in the past—Hera had proved how easily she could outmaneuver anyone trained by the Empire. But Boba Fett was a legend. He'd long been a legend by the time Ketsu touted his exploits: a Mandalorian raking in the biggest bounties using equipment not much more advanced than what they got their hands on at the time.

He was an opponent to take seriously… and they were chasing him in the _Phantom_ of all things.

Hera followed Fett around a particularly large asteroid, and immediately applied backwards thrusters, killing her speed.

A second ship was already there, a light freighter, bigger than Fett's ship and enormously brave to be careening among so many asteroids. It flew on Fett's tail, shooting a spray of lasers that the former evaded with an almost graceful roll.

It flew faster and smoother than any sort of freighter should, breaking away from Fett—sliding into a turn—to face Hera.

"Sabine! Who is that?!"

"What? Like I'm supposed to know every bounty hunter and hopeful scum out there?!"

Hera immediately spun the _Phantom_ into a dive, zipping between asteroids and banking around them within inches of scraping them, but the freighter stuck to her tail. It opened fire.

Hera ducked under a looming asteroid—an impromptu shield—and just before the new enemy crested the asteroid, the _Slave I_ snuck around from the port side, its own lasers flying for the _Phantom_.

"Hera!" shouted Sabine. "This is really bad!" These hunters hadn't started out working together to capture Woofrow, but now they both considered the _Phantom_ enough of a threat to at least temporarily join forces.

"Not yet it's not!"

* * *

Hera pulled up hard on the controls, and as Boba Fett fell in behind her, the mystery ship barreled over the asteroid directly behind Fett, opening fire on the _Slave I_. Fett veered aside.

A moment later, half the cockpit controls flashed a bright red while the other half wailed. The third ship had locked onto the _Phantom_ and shot two trailing missiles.

They followed Hera as she darted around asteroids, weaving and rolling and spinning. Hera brought the dorsal gun to life, shooting as best she could with no clear visual on either missile. Just as she banked to the left, one of her lasers hit a missile, destroying it in an explosion that bumped their ship forward. The second missile closed in on the _Phantom_.

Hera tilted to slip right between two asteroids. The wailing from the controls grew frenzied. She clipped an asteroid as she tried to duck around it for cover; the starboard side wing scraping the rocky surface filled the cabin with the shrillest screech, followed by a huge, buckling shudder that sent the entire _Phantom_ spinning end-over-end. The viewport was more of a kaleidoscope than anything else.

The systems beeped wildly, but differently now. Instead of warning any impending danger, they wailed the current danger.

"We've been hit," Hera reported. "Thrusters are damaged; engine's fried. We're dead in the water."

The port side wing skidded along another asteroid—that at least stopped the _Phantom_ from spinning endlessly. They leveled out and floated, both women looking for any sign of enemy hunters.

"Now it's really bad," Sabine said. "What do we do?"

There was a button on the dash that Hera never expected to use: the automated distress call, sent straight to the _Ghost_. She slammed the button.

"We keep our heads," Hera responded, hands tight on the controls. "We can't move, but if they fly into our crosshairs, I'm shooting." It was their only remaining option.

"They're bounty hunters—you really think a ship like this is going to do much more than scratch them?!"

As Sabine spoke, the mystery light freighter descended into their viewport, just out of reach of the _Phantom_ 's stationary twin laser cannons. Hera swung the dorsal gun around and shot a controlled pair of blasts at the ship, but the freighter's shields absorbed the attack without even the slightest rock. The stranger's weapon system locked onto them, a warning the _Phantom_ blared over all other failing systems chirps.

Without another thought, Hera sprang up, blocking Sabine from the viewport and pulling the girl into a tight hug. They winced together as the ship rocked with the shockwave of an explosion. But it wasn't their ship. Hera spun back around.

The freighter had detonated in a blaze of engine oil and stockpiled explosives, and the _Slave I_ soared through its remains. It hovered where the last ship had been, facing the _Phantom_ , laser cannons pointed at them, before turning and continuing on his way.

Sabine breathed a sigh of relief as Hera let her go, flopping back into the pilot's chair. They let silence reign for countless minutes, ruminating on this whole ordeal.

"He saved us," Sabine said at last, hardly louder than a whisper. "I mean, technically, we owe him. Honor's a big Mandalorian thing."

Hera's gaze searched the asteroid field. Pieces of the light freighter spun slowly across the viewport. "Not all of us are Mandalorian."


	2. When You Least Expect It

**A.N.** pt 1. If you're not familiar with Trandoshans, the Scorekeeper is the Trandoshan goddess, sort of a patron of the hunt. Trandoshans hunt specifically in her name to honor her and earn "points" for themselves, which become their score.

Also, I'm modeling Boba Fett off of his TCW incarnation more so than the OT.

* * *

 **When You Least Expect It**

* * *

It was strange being in the same room as the rest of the crew without really feeling _there_. Sabine registered what was happening—the boys flinging wild questions at Hera as she calmly answered them—while still lost in her own memory, her gut aching worse than the time she'd been kicked in the Academy. She teetered on the edge of nausea. Perhaps her discomfort was apparent enough, and that's why the boys had decided to leave her be.

Kanan yelled something about _what if_ … in a voice loud enough to infiltrate the fringe of Sabine's mind, but her focus was on the moment that had played on repeat in her head for the last half hour. Back in the _Phantom_ , when Hera had rested her hands on Sabine's shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and smashed all her trust in a single breath.

"We can't let the others know about Boba Fett," she had said. " _Promise_ me you won't say it was him."

Hera might as well have punched her instead; Sabine's gut ached all the same. Her demand was immediate. "But why?" Sabine's days of complacently agreeing with authority had died with her cadet status.

"It's an undue cause for concern. We'll probably never run into him again and the guys will make it into something bigger than it is. Sabine, they don't need to know."

Hera had smiled a sweet, friendly smile, as if Sabine had acquiesced, and the topic was dropped.

Now, safely aboard the _Ghost_ with the damaged _Phantom_ magnetically sealed to the freighter's underside, Sabine zoned back to the present as Hera calmly retold the story of their failed rescue mission. The boys listened with varying degrees of worry plastered to each of their faces. Hera never mentioned the second hunter—the one who almost killed them. The tale she spun had them outmaneuvered by a single unknown bounty hunter, who fled the scene once the _Phantom_ was dead in space. Much less terrifying than what actually happened. Much less factual.

At the conclusion of her half-truth, Kanan returned to his insitence that "You could've died!"

"Kanan, please," sighed Hera. "We were never in that much danger. If we hurry, we might be able to track the scum that made off with Dr. Woofrow. Sabine said he's flying to Coruscant, so that at least gives us time."

"Who, Hera?" Kanan asked. "Who did this?"

"I told you already—a bounty hunter! What, was I supposed to recognize his _helmet_?"

Sabine fell into the booth.

Hera hadn't changed. For all that Sabine thought they were growing closer over the past few months as they fled Lothal and joined the larger rebellion, Hera was no more open with the crew now than when "Fulcrum" was a mysterious intel supplier.

The bridges built and foundations laid to a stronger, trusting relationship had all been on Sabine's part. And how quickly they could be washed away. The scary thing was, if Sabine hadn't been on this mission, too, she would've believed everything Hera said, too. Boba Fett would've never even crossed her mind because Hera delivered her story with such genuineness.

Hera whisked off to the cockpit, bent on salvaging this mission, and Kanan followed, hopeful that he could assist. If Hera had actually told the truth that it was Boba Fett of all hunters who'd abducted Dr. Woofrow, Kanan would rightfully not hold out hope. But he was following one of Hera's lies and she was setting him up for failure.

Ezra and Zeb conferred with each other about this new situation, content to leave Sabine be. In the ensuing quiet, she picked herself up and eased herself toward her room. Her back still hurt from that explosion, reminding her how much she actually used her back for everything she did. As she considered the positive reasons for adding rear armor plates to her ensemble, Sabine caught sight of her Ketsu painting sitting askew, peeking out from behind her wall locker.

Sabine set her teeth.

"Ez- _RA_!"

* * *

The management changed, but Coruscant retained its distinction within the core worlds as the glittering capital of the established galactic rule. Boba Fett had considered the Republic and the Jedi corrupt since childhood, but he couldn't say he noticed a difference under the Empire—he hardly lingered here long enough to look for any. Imperial bureaucracy gripped Coruscant so tightly that only bribery expedited administrative work. Luckily, the bounty hunting industry already boasted a speed only illegality allowed.

There was a special section near enough to the government offices to absorb their legitimacy by proximity, but far enough away that the average citizen didn't see how often the Empire employed hunters. The bounty collection building in this area looked as dark as its purpose. The officers supervising, roving with hands behind backs, watched everything down the length of their noses, lips curled in disdain. The expression must have been issued as regularly as their uniforms. The stormtroopers posted around the building were hardly intimidating when Fett's gear could outperform all of theirs.

Between the gray columns in an open, sparse room that discouraged loitering, a queue formed. Boba Fett didn't have to wait long for an attendant to bypass a cyborg bounty hunter trailing a carbonite slab and a droid with only a datapad—a regular disintegration job—to check Fett's quarry. Dr. Woofrow, wide awake now, stood next to the Mandalorian, bound in cuffs, lip quivering in a silent whimper.

The attendant was dressed in an Imperial uniform that would've let him blend into the dull floor and the dull walls if he only stood still. His own biometric scan of the bounty was their usual formality, but then he looked up and said, "It says here you scanned two individuals wanted for small-time rebellion and dissent. Where are they?"

Fett stiffened at the accusatory tone. "I left them. Their prices wouldn't even cover the cost of fuel turning them in." Of course there was always the fact that he wasn't hired for their capture and may have been feeling lazier than normal.

Two armed stormtroopers arrived to escort Dr. Woofrow through a durasteel door into the bowels of the organization, where nothing escaped if it wasn't approved to leave.

The attendant brought up information on his 'pad privileged to those inside the bureaucracy. "If you can capture their associates, you'll be paid triple the price listed. Blast, just bring in the Jedi alone and get paid triple."

Triple a small bounty was still a small bounty.

Boba Fett confirmed the message on the attendant's device of a successful credit transfer to his accounts. "Back in the day, I turned in my fair share of Jedi to you, mate. Be grateful."

* * *

"I'm not looking for excuses, I'm looking for answers!" Hera snapped from the pilot's chair in the _Ghost_ cockpit. Chopper gave a bickering bleep and fell into silence, spinning his computer probe in the terminal, plotting logical courses a bounty hunter might've taken to Coruscant, and possible waystations utilized along the routes.

Kanan entered then carrying two cups of caf. He handed one to Hera, who was still squinting at the holographic projection of the galaxy, flashing with Chopper's updated routes.

Chopper again beeped from his corner.

"Why would I bring you one?" Kanan asked. He slipped into the co-pilot's seat to be just as helpful as he was before his trip to the galley: he sat in silence, drinking his caf.

"Chopper, send me these routes you've calculated already. I'll start slicing into the popular waystations and check their dock logs," Hera said.

Kanan blinked at her. "...You can do that?"

"Looks like I'm still finding ways to surprise you after all this time," Hera mumbled. It hardly felt like a joke when her day had gone so wrong. She ran a glove over her forehead, but that hardly eased the sharp headache throbbing around her eyes and stabbing into her lekku.

The door slid aside for Sabine then. Toting her datapad, she paused in the doorway. "The bounty's down. He's been turned in already."

Hera's fist slammed down on a dashboard display, spiking her headache. Her lekku shivered in a way the crew had only seen when the Twi'lek was livid—and even that had only been one time.

It took her a long moment to compose herself—a long moment of Kanan and Sabine exchanging glances as they were both in the blast zone—but then Hera huffed, "I'll tell Commander Sato."

Kanan reached over to rest a hand on her shoulder. "If you'd had the _Ghost_ , that hunter would've had a run for his credits. Scum got lucky this time."

Sabine rolled her eyes, her scoff hardly loud enough to compete with Chopper's processing noises, and left.

* * *

Boba Fett could've afforded the Skylight Cantina today, sitting atop one of the tallest buildings in the most affluent sector, where Moffs and the wealthy flocked to be seen. But it was also an hour before midday when things like rules and etiquette barred most people hoping to climb the social ladder from showing up before a more respectable time in the evening.

However, Jakk's Bar, where their most exotic drink came from Corellia and their mugs were about the size of Fett's helmet, didn't have those kinds of restraints. No matter what time of day it was, the bar always boasted clientele—of a sort that would never even see the turbolift to the Skylight Cantina. It sat in the heart of the Nikto territory, where well-to-do people would only wander if they were lost… or desperate enough.

Fett was on his third glass of clear Neimoidian brandy by the time a familiar creature walked through the front door. The yellow-scaled Trandoshan immediately noticed Boba's beckoning wave and joined his table.

"Bossk, it's been awhile," Fett said, a rare smirk on his face for an even rarer friend. It's not that Fett never made friends, he was just in a business where he tended to outlive the few he had.

"Sssitting on Corussscant, drinking your daysss away again." Bossk eyed Fett with playful disdain, but eyed his drink with pure envy.

"We all have our hobbies."

"I've got a promisssing bounty hunting more Jedi."

Fett tipped his glass around, swirling the contents, if just to watch Bossk's eyes follow it. "Do you?"

"On Dactil."

Fett stopped toying with him. The only bounty on Dactil had been of the scientist Fett already turned in. But the women he scanned—the ones with known, active connections to Jedi—had been on Dactil.

The Empire was using his lead to employ other hunters in his stead. His immediate spike of indignation simmered when he remembered he was sitting on fifty nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty credits. And triple a small bounty was still a small bounty.

Fett lifted his drink in a toast. "Cheers to your score."

* * *

A week was long enough for Fett to celebrate his bounty and see old faces like Dengar and Latts Razzi who were always amiable when someone else picked up their tab. But they filtered out to hunt bounties of their own, and lacking the presence of people Fett considered friends when he was armed and their sticky fingers weren't around his ship, celebrating solo wasn't exactly fun.

He returned to _Slave I_ one night to find a bounty contract from the Black Sun blinking in the cockpit. Their operation required two people, and if there was anyone Fett would trust to evenly split the funds, it was the only sentient he called a friend when not in armor.

Bossk.

"Where are you, mate?" he said, sinking into his seat and bringing up the Trandoshan's last known coordinates. "Have you found my rebels yet?"

A quick search returned with news of a Trandoshan imprisoned by Imperial authorities on Dactil in the Garel system, conspicuously lacking information about the circumstances of capture. But when it came to the Empire, anyone not human was reason enough for detainment. How Bossk had even let himself get captured was another matter.

Fett wouldn't settle for someone like Dengar on a Black Sun mission, but he also couldn't go breaking Bossk out of prison by himself, and get himself blacklisted from all future Imperial contracts when they were the only organization with regular targets. If anyone was to spearhead a rescue mission, it needed to be someone with no ties to himself or bounty hunters.

Fett brought up the HoloNet and began running searches on any and all rebels connected with the planet Lothal.

* * *

One of Garel's moons was just rising as Hera made her way back through the streets with Kanan and Ezra, all carrying sacks of supplies from the local market. The three of them walked along as unhurriedly as the rest of the citizens out and about that evening, a fitting end to a similarly languid day.

"And yesterday Zeb hid my pillow and wouldn't tell me where it was," Ezra said. "I told him if he didn't give it back, I'd use all his frozen space waffles for target practice. Turns out he stuffed my pillow into Chopper's storage compartment."

"You've been complaining about Zeb a lot more this past week," Hera said, her smirk mirrored by Kanan.

"That's because he's the only one around. Sabine's been holed up in her room this entire time."

A cold shiver slithered down Hera's lekku then, reminiscent of Dactil. Looking around, she saw the locals who were slowly becoming familiar faces going about their business, none of them paying particular interest to Hera's small group. It was a quick sweep of the area; the street wasn't crowded, and the crew had picked a time when Imperial patrols weren't in the area.

" _Kei'nata ni, vashna_." It was almost a whisper, drifting from somewhere behind her. The words were so blessedly familiar, wrapping her in a warmth that felt like _home_ , while at the same time the shock of it shot straight through her body.

Kanan and Ezra looked back at her when she stopped.

"You alright?" Kanan asked.

Hera nodded. "I… I forgot something. Go on ahead, I'll meet you back at the ship."

The bags hanging from her hands hardly weighed her down as the hope in her chest spirited her back around the corner. The words were Ryl, her first language. Although she was perfectly fluent in Basic, there was something nostalgic and beautiful about hearing her mother tongue. It was relaxing and invigorating all at once. And it was something she hadn't heard in…

Hera didn't even notice the alleyway. It was dark, scrunched between two dark buildings that were similarly unassuming, and easily overlooked in favor of the bright, colorful marketplace unfolding at the end of the street. But just as she passed it, a gloved hand reached out and yanked her into the shadows between the buildings.

The glint of a T-visor stared at her, and even in the shadows she could make out the green of the stranger's armor.

Hera didn't drop her supplies so much as throw them down on her dive for the blaster holstered in her boot. Halfway there, Fett grabbed her right wrist and pulled it up above her head, pinning it to the bricks of the building behind her. She wound up a leg and kicked him straight in the gut. Her boot struck his plate armor, and the jolt reverberated through her bones and into her hip. She staggered, but he never released her.

"Let go!" she hissed.

"Let's be civil about this." His voice, despite the mechanical tone filtering through his helmet, had the strangest ring of familiarity to it.

She tugged at her wrist, but she couldn't pull free of his grasp. "Let go, please."

"Don't get excited." He looked her over, presumably identifying any other possible weapons because his visor angled the longest on her boot holster, before releasing her. "I'm here to talk. Are you the pilot who chased me through Dactil's rings in that junk auxiliary starfighter?"

Hera's mouth dropped at the insult. "It's not junk! And just wait 'till you see what my freighter can do to you."

"Good," Fett said with an incline of his helmet. "I need a favor."

The desire to laugh couldn't quite overcome Hera's incredulity. She stared at Fett as if he'd sported Azmorigan's head in addition to his own.

"In what star system would I ever help you?" This was the man who stole a rebellion sympathizer right out from under her, spiriting him away to no doubt a horrorific fate. Thanks to another bounty hunter trying to pull the same trick as Fett, Hera and Sabine had nearly been blown right out of space.

"The one in which I had an opportunity to kill you like I did Nyok, but let you go."

Dust over the planes. He may have saved them, but Hera certainly wasn't bound to any Mandalorian sense of duty or debt.

"The one in which I can make a call to the Imps right now with the location of wanted rebels in Garel's spaceport. But I won't. If you help me."

Her glare had been proven to make grown males of various species cower. She unleashed it in full force on Fett, but it was impossible to read any reaction through a helmet. But then again, no one else had managed to unnerve her before—not even Lando passing her off to Azmorigan—and Fett's threat took much of the potency out of her eyes.

There would be no way to explain her way out of a sudden Imperial strike on their spaceport hangar. They'd been successful and safe so far since fleeing Lothal. Jeopardizing not only their hiding place but the safety of everyone in her crew in an attempt to call his bluff would be selfish.

Depending on what Fett wanted.

"How did you even find us? The last time you saw us was on Dactil."

"It's part of the job."

"I'm sure there's no shortage of actual bounty hunter pilots out there…" she said, her glare softening into a pointed stare.

"I'm paid to complete tasks quickly, quietly, efficiently. I've yet to meet a pilot to equal your caliber."

Hera folded her arms across her chest. It was more than a little worrisome how something about his accent was deceptively trustworthy. She was ready to acquiesce based on how his explanation _sounded_ , rather than the logic behind it, but reined herself in. " _If_ I accept, what exactly are you expecting me to do?"

"Fly to Dactil and help me rescue a friend who got himself thrown in Imperial jail."

That was the last thing Hera expected to hear, and eyes widened as she scrounged for a reply. "Aren't you _with_ the Empire? Just ask them to release your… friend."

"I figured someone like you would know the Empire holds hunters in low regard. They owe me no favors, despite how much they employ me. Besides, my friend's not human, so they're not eager to release him even if I asked nicely."

Whenever the subject emerged about the Empire's speciesism, Hera couldn't help but think of Ryloth, and how it had broken under Imperial rule. Everything that made them unique as a culture was trodden over in favor of harvesting Ryll—and Twi'leks were punished for speaking their native language, even between one another.

Every time someone stood up in the galaxy wanting to fight against species injustice, Hera instinctively supported that endeavor.

But for the first time ever, that endeavor was coming from a man on the Empire's payroll.

She looked him in the visor, an absolute blackness that didn't even grant her her reflection. There was only one choice to pick.

* * *

Venting through art pacified Sabine the quickest. Her unfinished Ketsu piece safely behind her wall locker once more, Sabine had spent the past hour detailing a drawing of the crew—Hera on one side, Sabine on the other, and the rest somewhere in the middle, grouped between the polar opposites. Really, the sketch had been finished almost a half hour ago, but Sabine had mainly been staring at it, lost in thought.

Voices echoing from across the ship drew her out of her wild imagination. Sabine would've been lying to herself if she felt perturbed at the disruption. Considering she hadn't had a genuine conversation in the past two days, she voluntarily left her room and followed the voices to the galley.

Kanan and Ezra put away their supplies the only way they ever did—noisily. Ezra's excited pitch discussing upcoming training was something that could be heard from the opposite end of a spaceport.

Sabine stopped in the doorway. "Did you get my cantamelon?"

Kanan immediately tossed her a red fruit the size of her hand from his bag and dipped back into Ezra's conversation on training, reminding him that Rex would be back on the fleet tomorrow and it was exclusively a Jedi training session.

"Where's Hera?" Sabine piped up.

"She went back for something in the market," Ezra said, catching a box of instant mix Kanan tossed his way. "Wonder what's taking her so long, though?"

Despite the boys shrugging off the thought, Sabine pursed her lips on her path back to her room, rolling the cantamelon around in her hands as quickly as the assumptions flew through her mind, each one a little darker than the last. By the time she reached her door, her irritation was so strong that she felt like flinging her fruit into the opposite wall.

 _Breathe_ , she told herself. There was no use getting worked up over unknown situations.

"I'm back!" Hera's voice called from the cargo bay.

Sabine meandered back to the main room, to wait there, leaning in the doorway until Hera made it up. Kanan helped lift her bags of supplies up the ladder and handed them off to Ezra before the pilot herself climbed into the room.

"Find what you were looking for?" Kanan asked.

Hera spared a nod. "Since we're not tasked with anything tomorrow, I'm going out to get a few things taken care of. It'll probably last me all day." Her announcement was mainly for Kanan, but her gaze included Ezra and Sabine, as calmly and innocently as when she lied about the space battle.

"Sounds good," Kanan replied before he and Ezra carried the rest of the supplies to the galley, not even the slightest bit curious. Not even the slightest bit suspicious.

Sabine, however, knew immediately that she would be tagging along.

* * *

 **A.N.** pt. 2: Kei'nata ni, vashna= hello, ma'am.


	3. The Job

The Job

* * *

Sabine's eyes flew open and she lay in her bunk aboard the _Ghost_ just listening. Concentrating. Whether it was an actual noise that had woken her up or just her dream about Hera and Ketsu flying off together and leaving her behind, Sabine wasn't sure. But she held her breath, waiting for any secondary sound to confirm her fears.

The noise echoed faintly by the time it reached Sabine's room, but a rummaging—most likely coming from the galley—was enough to convince her someone else was up. And unless Zeb was back into his food raiding routine again, it was probably Hera.

Sabine whipped the sheet off of her. The hunt for her gauntlet led her halfway across her cabin, and by the time she found it she was so worried she was _missing_ whatever was happening out there that the numbers displayed by her chrono didn't even startle her. It was a half hour before proper sunrise.

A familiar sound followed, a deep one chasing the shiver that shot across the floor like thunder after lightning. The boarding ramp had been lowered, and not even half a minute later it closed shut with an extra ship-shake. It had to be Hera.

Sabine practically tripped into her armor, taking more care when it came to slapping charges into her blaster on the way out of her room.

Hera was halfway down the street when Sabine slid to a stop in the spaceport doorway, and although the Twi'lek's pale green skin blended in alarmingly well to the smudgy haze of dawn, her bright orange pilot's suit did not.

One step out of the spaceport and it was back: the thrill of the hunt. Sabine never expected to feel the surge of anticipation at tracking someone ever again, not after her dramatic divorce from her "career" as a bounty hunter, but old habits were never really outgrown.

The almost murky landscape—early morning in any metropolis—worked in Sabine's favor. At her careful distance, she would be able to blend into almost any shadow if Hera ever turned around… And Sabine was rather shocked Hera never turned around, as they were among only a handful of sentients up and about at that hour.

Sabine stopped at a humming ray fence skirting the perimeter of a landing zone, protecting a docked Lambda-class T-4a shuttle with its wings folded. Certainly not a strange sight to see on the Imperial-held Garel, but the last sort of ship Sabine ever expected Hera to waltz right up to.

* * *

Hera's lekku had twitched the duration of the journey from the _Ghost_ , a bad omen if ever there was one. This wasn't the first time she'd lied to her crew, but she was doing this for their benefit. The fleet's plans of staying under Imperial radar would be completely trashed if the Empire found them now; here.

No matter how many times she told herself she was protecting the crew's identities from Fett, the twitchy feeling remained. The presence of an Imperial ship docked at the coordinates Fett gave her drove a stake into her stomach and her logic. Exactly how far was infiltrating an Imperial prison going to go?

The strategic side of her brain immediately concluded that this was all an elaborate set-up to capture a member of their rebel cell, most likely _her_. The evidence was here: Imperial ship, Imperial-paid bounty hunter, traveling to an Imperial prison—she was protecting the crew from being involved in this but what about protecting herself?

Boba Fett descended the boarding ramp just far enough to where he could hook his hands up on the lip of the hatchway and just lean. The longer he stood there as the shuttle shivered in automatic pre-flight diagnostics, the more her mind increasingly tipped in the favor of paranoia.

"You're more punctual than my usual partners. Ready?"

She'd forgotten how there was _something_ about his voice that sounded so agreeable. Even distorted by helmet filters and a jaded personality, Hera thought she heard amicability and competence. Ignoring his Mandalorian gear and his weapon, with his offensively unbothered air, he looked positively at his leisure.

"This doesn't look like your ship," she said. Her mind flopped in last-minute indecision. She wouldn't be able to stall once they were in the air.

"I call it the _Hyperspeedy_. It won't bring unnecessary attention." He nodded up the ramp before ascending it himself.

"Uh-huh. You shouldn't be in charge of naming anything," Hera muttered, eyebrows flat. Clenching her fists, she strode after him, her footsteps echoing a hesitant cadence.

* * *

Exhaust hissed from side ports as the ramp swung shut, an image crystal clear down to the measurements in Sabine's range finder. The shuttle lifted off seconds later with almost a lurch—Boba Fett must've been piloting—and Sabine swung her scope back in place. "I'm not playing your game anymore, Hera."

Her own return to the _Ghost_ was exactly like that shuttle, a fast start and an immediate correction; she couldn't run like she wanted to. Sabine gut twisted as sharply as back in her Academy days. As sharply as when Ketsu left her behind. That familiar wave of nausea followed.

She'd expected to find something like this when she followed Hera today, but to actually be proven right—to see the woman who told Sabine to trust her walk willingly with an enemy—it was Sabine's worst fears confirmed. Hera had kept this from everybody. She hadn't changed.

* * *

As the viewport darkened in the upper atmosphere, Hera inspected the rear of the ship. Wedged between the two rows of seats along the wall huddled several barrels of rhydonium amid crates of explosives and a rack of weapons Sabine would've recognized in a heartbeat. Hera rattled her brain for specifics, but all that was thudding in her mind was: serious firepower.

"Are we attacking the jail?" she asked upon returning to the cockpit.

"Better to have it and not need it, _hirani_ ," Fett tossed over his shoulder.

Hera spun around as sharply as her eyebrows slanted. She leaned into his space, their ceasefire agreement the only thing saving him from Hera treating him like all the other spacers to try to give her nicknames through the years. "First off, my name is Hera, not _hirani_ , not _vashna_ or _tuki_ or whatever else you can think of. Second, _where_ did you learn Ryl?"

"I downloaded a phrase app."

"It must not have audio because your pronunciation could use work." She looked from the empty copilot's seat to Fett sitting in the pilot's chair. "I thought you wanted _me_ to pilot?"

"I want you to pilot us on the return flight, when we'll likely be tailed by Imps." Once he eased their shuttle into hyperspace, he spun to face her and the mission brief began. "This prison is in the middle of nowhere, which gives us time. Barely. Power generators are spaced on the perimeter wall of the compound. I need the cell ray shields, the surveillance, and the shields for the jail all killed. Then we'll get Bossk and escape."

Simple enough.

Hera sank into the copilot's seat, taking in battle-proven green armor before swinging her attention to the controls in front of her. Her mind was three steps behind, however, mulling over how his voice could give her so much pause. Finally though, it clicked: trusting him seemed so natural because his accent sounded almost identical to Rex's.

"Where are you from?" Hera asked, her voice exuding a neutralness nowhere present in her mind.

Fett remained similarly neutral. "Here and there."

"You just… sound familiar, is all." Out of the corner of her eye she could see his visor point her direction.

"I get that a lot."

* * *

Halfway back to the _Ghost_ , Sabine's writscom exploded with the chirp of an incoming message, followed by Ezra's voice, nearly as shrill.

" _Hey, Sabine_!"

She paused on the side of the road, much more crowded this time around. "What is it?"

" _Just a heads up that we're taking the_ Phantom _on a quick mission for Ahsoka. We're going to_ —"

" _No specifics_!" Kanan's voice cut in.

" _Right. We're… going. We'll be back later. Tell Hera for us_?"

More secrets. "No specifics" over coms had been the established rule since before Sabine had been taken in by Hera and Kanan, but they could've at least told her when they planned on coming back.

Eerie silence welcomed Sabine back to the Ghost. She'd at least expected them to leave Zeb or Chopper. But, no, _all_ the boys left on this mission. Hera could be gone for days; the boys could be gone for a week and Sabine would have to sit here, guarding the _Ghost_. The entire crew had left her behind.

She wandered into the cockpit, helmet in one hand, and slumped into the copilot's chair. She couldn't call the boys back while they were on mission, that was just a bad idea. But she had to tell _someone_.

Sabine flipped on the long-range communication. Without Chopper around—did the boys _really_ have to take Chopper, too?—the dejarik table in the main cabin was the only holocommunicator available. Sabine input the number so familiar she didn't even have to recall it; her fingers automatically glided across the buttons and she held her breath. A hologram bust finally formed in the middle of the table, the pink color of a helmet lost in the blueness of the transmission.

"What—you?!" the hunter squawked. "How'd you get this number?!"

"Ketsu, you never change it," sighed Sabine.

"What, we run into each other once and now you think we're friends? I'm disconnecting."

"No—wait!" Sabine cried. "I need to talk—and you'll be interested in this. Remember Boba Fett?"

Ketsu's helmet lowered like a razoronn ready to charge. She remembered.

* * *

Anxiety bloomed in Hera's chest. The usual adrenaline was present like it always was before an operation, surging through her veins, adding that extra quiver to her lekku bounce. But for the first time ever, Hera was not in control of the op. She'd had nothing to do with forming the plan. Usually, when Ezra or Kanan came up with a strategy, it was a load off her shoulders following their ideas, but here her nerves jumped with worst-case scenarios because she hadn't contributed to this plan at all. There was nothing about it that had her seal of approval.

This side of Dactil, rolling hills undulated in all directions with not a building to be seen. The appearance of the walled jail compound in the distance was like a little starburst on the horizon, brighter than the two moons rising.

Just as they flew into range to observe the layout of the prison, a frequency hailed their communications.

" _Send your clearance code_ ," a standard Imperial voice demanded.

Fett's fingers scrambled over the controls.

" _What is your business_?"

"Prisoner dropoff," Fett replied, his Basic ringing with a more neutral accent. Hera immediately disliked it.

" _We were not alerted_."

Hera winced. There was no way this plan would work—the Imperials couldn't be that dumb.

" _Right_ ," came the tower after a lengthy pause. " _Lowering the shields. Proceed to landing zone_."

Then again, it wasn't the first time she'd been proved wrong.

"We've only got one chance at this," Fett said.

"You don't have to worry about _me_."

The security station stood on the perimeter wall itself—thick durasteel that could still repel a buffeting from ship guns even without a shield, but considerably less thick when aiming to land on it. Hera stood on the lowered ramp as Fett flew over, waiting for his "NOW!" to launch herself in a burst of adrenaline and blind faith that Fett had timed it right. She rolled to a halt along the wall, the only roving guards inside the compound watching the shuttle land. No one noticed an orange-clad figure dart along the wall and knock on the station's door.

The second it slid open, Hera bounded in, the room illuminating with her blaster fire.

One wall, under rows of monitors focusing on the prisoner's cells, spread panels of controls, as foreign to Hera as Huttese. She started pushing the brightest buttons, mostly being met with rude beeps. But finally, one glowing green button successfully turned off every ray shield door on all the inmates' cells.

Alarms instantly blared.

Hera shot her blaster at the terminal, hoping to prevent any Imperials from altering the command, but the monitors showed that the ray shields just started fritzing in and out.

Her shoulders dropped at the sight of it, but the mission kicked into the forefront of her mind. She couldn't waste time on trying to fix anything, she just had to hope that Fett's friend had made it out of his cell.

On the other side of the room were the controls for the shields for the entire compound. This was a much more familiar setup. Pushing two levers up, she heard the far-off groan of generators powering down. No extra alarms, no fritzing, just immediate success.

Hera sprinted out of the station and along the wall in the direction of the shuttle. There were no soldiers or guards out here now, but from the sound of blaster fire and general chaos erupting in the buildings gathered on the far side of the compound, Hera assumed they were all busy attempting to contain the loose prisoners.

Along Hera's getaway route, another station stood on the wall, this one adorned with large satellite discs and communication rods. The monitoring station. She burst into the room, catching the tail end of a distress call.

"—send reinforcements immediately!"

The two officers inside froze at the sight of her, and both fell victim to Hera's blaster.

Six screens on the wall illuminated the room in a hazy blue glow. Most showed scenes of prisoners running amok, outnumbering the guards at terrible odds. One screen, though, clearly captured Boba Fett sneaking through.

" _Penitentiary Facility Cresh, what is your predicament_?" a voice rang through the speakers, a response to the call for help. " _Penitentiary Facility Cresh, do you read_?"

It wouldn't have done much good for Hera to respond with her fake Imperial accent, no matter how convincingly she'd refined it; a woman's voice alone would be a dead giveaway she was not an Imperial soldier.

Ignoring the incessant attempt at establishing communication, Hera pushed one slumped officer off the console. Her fingers flew over buttons, running through rudimentary slicing techniques. Luckily, the systems were older and therefore more susceptible to basic slicing, unencumbered by new, thorough protection upgrades.

Hera transfered the data she needed onto a holodisc just as she saw footage of Fett running back toward the ship with a Trandoshan in tow. An explosion somewhere else in the compound shivered the perimeter wall right under Hera's feet. Probably Fett's handiwork. She grabbed the disc and fled.

One more dash took Hera from the monitoring station to the stairs tucked into the corner of the durasteel wall. The last thing she saw before hustling to the ground was a formation of blinking lights in the dark distance: incoming TIE fighters.

The fight—riot, hostile takeover, whatever it was morphing into—had spilled out of the buildings and into the yard, prisoners overwhelming armored guards by sheer manpower. Most were nowhere near Hera, she had a straight shot to the shuttle, but the prisoners _did_ notice the single docked ship. That was enough of an enticement for many.

Fett and his friend stood on the ramp, armed with the rifles they'd brought, shooting prisoners and guards alike. So far no one had gotten too close, but as more prisoners noticed the shuttle sitting there, it wouldn't be long before they charged like a tidal wave.

"Your turn to fly!" Fett called.

Hera shot up the ramp and into the pilot's seat. She automatically reached for controls only to find they weren't where they should've been—at least not where she was used to. This wasn't anything like the _Ghost_.

But the buttons she found responded with the same exhilarating rumble, and the first lever she pulled immediately responded with a liftoff that felt more like an effortless glide upwards—much smoother than in Fett's hands. The steering felt a little clumsy, especially when the shuttle didn't veer as sharply as she wanted to weave through the belated plasma fire from the prison turrets below. But overall, it was a good ship.

It just wasn't a _fast_ ship. The TIEs caught up sooner than she expected, and Hera wouldn't be able to weave this shuttle over the hilly landscape like she'd be able to in the _Ghost_ , so she rocketed for the clouds, the creaking of the strained hull as loud as the surprised cries from both her passengers.

"Fett!" she snapped over her shoulder. "It'd be a shame to come all this way and not use the rhydonium."

She leveled out the shuttle and he jumped to action without further direction. Moments later, two barrels were loaded onto the ramp and one press of a button from the cockpit sent them tumbling into the upper atmosphere. Fett manning the controls to the rear-mounted cannon, a well-timed shot from him rid them of pursuers in an explosion even Sabine would've been proud of.

He relaxed in the copilot's seat, his relieved chuckle echoing as inorganic as a droid's.

"Coordinates set," she reported, and with a push of a lever, the viewport stretched into the blueness of hyperspace.

* * *

Hera had experienced awkward situations before, and while nothing could top the time her father scolded her in front of a whole unit of his fighters, the return flight to Garel—somehow longer this time around, Hera swore—was close. The awkwardness was palpable in the stifling silence.

Bossk sat somewhere in the rear, and Hera's mind kept asserting: _with all the weapons_. Hera didn't dare turn around to check on him, not even when she heard an occasional, unprovoked hiss, but she discretely angled her leg for the easiest access to her blaster.

The hissing didn't seem to bother Fett as he sat in the copilot's seat. Although he also didn't make any effort to strike up a conversation with Hera or his friend.

She could relate to the impatience and frustration at wanting to talk privately with someone, but she'd never been the point of hindrance before. Here, she was the stranger; the outsider. The atmosphere—especially from the back of the shuttle—was growing almost tense. Hera's skin hadn't crawled this much even in front of Dr. Woofrow's house.

Just thinking of the fate of that poor Chadra-Fan tightened her grip around the controls. She side eyed the perpetrator only to find his visor pointed in her direction. His helmet slid casually to the copilot's controls when her whole head darted in his direction.

The flight couldn't be over soon enough.

* * *

The pink haze of Garel's afternoon was a welcome sight. Piloting an Imperial shuttle, Hera experienced the quickest permission to land she could recall, a timely perk.

Hera was also the first to tromp down the ramp onto the landing pad, Fett following.

"Looks like we're square," he said.

Hera spun about, her lekku centimeters away from whipping him in the helmet. "I held up my end of the deal, but what's gonna stop you from calling the Imperials and turning us in?"

Fett straightened under all that armor. "I don't go back on my deals. And I've passed on bounties more than double yours, sweetheart. Just trust that we part ways as… acquaintances on different ends of the spectrum."

"I've met bounty hunters before, _sweetheart_ , and I know how little I can trust them. I also have this." She pulled a holodisc out of her pocket. It hummed to life with a small but very detailed image of Fett shooting his way through Penitentiary Facility Cresh, Bossk on his heels. The blue holoimage slowly rotated on its base, the bounty hunter unmistakeable from any angle. "So if Imps come for me, they'll find out about you, too."

"You'd make a terrible Sabacc player. Fine, have it your way," he spat. "All cooperation ends here. I run into you somewhere down the line, I'm hauling you in." His words echoed more ominously filtered through his helmet, tinted in that inorganic, droid-like pitch.

Her lekku shivered, but she stood her ground. "Try to catch me, first." She couldn't see the glare hidden behind his visor, but she could feel it stabbing her to the bone.

Fett and Hera turned their backs on one another, him returning to the shuttle and her marching out of the private landing zone. Only when Hera had made it to the busy street did she let passing speeders disguise her shaky sigh.

She never expected Fett to sound hurt. If anything, she expected him to have been impressed on covering her bases. Beating him at his own game. She'd learned something; thought on her feet. Wouldn't that have sparked a bit of appreciation? She hadn't gone too far, had she?

But Fett had been angry. Offended.

Hera reached into her pocket just to be sure the disc was still there. It was. But that didn't stop her from checking over her shoulder every so often, whenever her lekku twitched.

Her nerves eased considerably at first sight of the _Ghost_ standing in the hangar, and she finally released the holodisc. She'd protected her crew, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

The shiver through the floor of the galley alerted Sabine that someone had returned. As she hadn't heard the familiar scrape along the hull of the ship of a docking _Phantom_ , Sabine assumed it was Hera and accordingly stuffed her arms with food packs to scurry back to her cabin.

She wasn't quite fast enough, and on her way through the main cabin she heard Hera call from the ladder, "Hey, where is everyone?"

"They didn't tell me," Sabine said, turning to face Hera with an expression as unreadable as her helmet. "Not that that's anything new. Nobody tells me things around here."

Hera climbed the rest of the way into the room, apparently the silence as obvious to her as it had been to Sabine. The stench of weapons fire clinging to her flight suit wasn't hard to miss. "Wait, they _all_ left?"

"Yep. But I'm sure they'll be back sometime. We just have to trust them." Her voice was as distant as she herself felt at that moment, and from Hera's sympathetic look, it was apparent she'd caught on.

"Sabine, I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone that I left this morning, but it won't happen again. I'm back now—"

"Great," Sabine cut in, feeling the color rising in her cheeks. "Good for you." And before Hera could rattle off any of her bottled excuses, Sabine turned on her heel and escaped into the safety of her cabin.


End file.
